By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
LITTLE VALLEY — Cattaraugus County lawmakers voted Wednesday to abolish four full-time laborer II positions in the Public Works Department in return for backfilling four other DPW posts.
Legislative leaders have pushed department heads this year to consider not backfilling positions, or filling positions that become vacant, whenever possible. If it is possible to delay backfilling a position, the Labor Relations Committee has encouraged it.
Last year, the county legislature abolished 13 positions in food service at the Pines Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center Campus in Machias and contracted out for the services. The Pines in Olean had previously contracted food service out to a private company.
The resolution to abolish the four laborer II positions at various highway barns was submitted for immediate consideration. Committees had discussed the issue last week, but had not presented a resolution in time for Wednesday’s agenda. It was cosponsored by Legislature Chairman Andrew Burr, R-Gowanda and Labor Relations Committee Chairman Ginger Schroder, R-Farmersville and is effective June 1.
Another resolution for immediate consideration that passed unanimously authorizes a $25,000 contract with the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency to help recruit businesses to the vacant Setterstix building on South Main Street in the village of Cattaraugus.
The company closed the plant two years ago and moved to a plant in South Carolina.
Burr, who represents the area, sponsored the resolution as part of the county’s commitment to promoting entrepreneurship in Cattaraugus, which has lost most of its once robust manufacturing base employing hundreds of workers.
The $25,000 the county is providing will be used for legal, vetting and site control costs associated with the Setterstix building project. The county will reimburse the IDA up to $25,000. The contract expires Dec. 31.
Another resolution approved by lawmakers authorized acceptance of a $198,000 grant from the New York State Department of State for a Brownfield Opportunity Area Program.
Sponsored by Development and Agriculture Chairman Norman Marsh, R-Little Valley, and Vice Chairman Frank Higgins, R-Olean, the resolution was approved under immediate consideration. The program would run from June 1, 2025 to June 1, 2030.
The $198,000 will be used to hire a consultant to undertake a countywide brownfield study with the objective of cleaning up contaminated sites for development.
Legislators agreed to extend Cattaraugus County’s participation in an intermunicipal agreement with seven other Western new York counties: Allegany, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans and Wyoming to provide mutual aid in an emergency.
Cattaraugus Community Action agreed to provide a full-time mobile crisis therapist for Cattaraugus County Mental Health Clinic for up to $82,000 a year. The initial contract in the resolution runs from May 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.
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